Help identify a scam?

Update: I greatly appreciate everyone and their time. The advice and harsh rebukes have snapped me back into reality and I'm on the path to recovery.

I joined a WhatsApp group around Thanksgiving called NAS share community (https://www.nas-community.com/), with daily 'lessons' from a Professor Montgomery Keene, a Mr. Daniel Robert and the assistant Ms. Hannah Davis. They promote a trading system called AlphaStream 5.0 that they are using to trade using the FEEAICC app. The trades are short and result in substantial earnings, generally between 40-100%.

In December, they offered me a loan to help increase my position, which I foolishly accepted. The caveat that is spelled out right in the contract is that I cannot use earnings in the trading account to pay back the loan due to 'malicious arbitrage'. So I have to pay the loan back using USD, sent to a C2C exchanger, which is then converted to USDT and recharged to my FEEAICC account.

In communicating with them in the WA group and on Telegram (where the assistant communicates), the language they use is strange and feels non-native.

I have been running around all weekend to gather cash to send to them (I haven't yet), worried about missing my loan payment date and have been worried out of my mind with what they would do to me if I didn't repay the loan. They have my name and address, but no other information. Paying them back would require me to take a lien against my home and over-leverage me. All with the hopes that I would have access to the profits I have generated to pay it all back. (There is about $274k accumulated there)

The more I read here, it sounds a bit like a pig butchering scheme and that even when I pay back the loan, the funds may not be unlocked or even real. The website is clean-looking, but I cannot verify anything about it.

As I write this out, it feels more and more like a scam. I just worry what will happen if I don't pay them back. Can I just block it all and move on with my life? I'll have lost about $5k but that is a small price compared to the $96k they "loaned" me.

What say you?